Communications Group Limited (STW) and increase its shareholding from 23.6% to 61.5%. STW, Australia and New Zealand’s leading marketing and communications group, is a publicly listed company, whose shares are traded on the Australian Securities Exchange

Listed advertising and marketing services firm STW Communications has gone into a trading halt amid speculation of a takeover by Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP. The move by WPP is not unexpected with the two businesses being closely associated since the late 1990s. STW and WPP partner in some businesses such as Ogilvy, and WPP already owns 23.6 per cent of STW through its subsidiary, Cavendish Square Holdings.

WPP announces that J. Walter Thompson Company, the global marketing communications agency, has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Cleartag, the leading independent full service digital marketing consultancy in Lebanon and the UAE.

Independent integrated communications agency, Four Communications Group (Four), has acquired the Welsh market leading PR and design agency, Francis Balsom Associates Ltd (known as FBA). Four has acquired 100 per cent of the equity. The two companies already work together in a consortium called Four Cymru and this will be the trading name going forward for all work in Wales

Edelman has bought London-based financial PR and investor relations firm Smithfield Consultants, an acquisition described by UK & Ireland CEO Ed Williams as one of the “last pieces in the jigsaw” for the group’s UK offering. For the full story read PR Week

Around 60% of suppliers to the UK’s event industry are facing collapse within three months unless event businesses receive further support from the government. Of those businesses, 6% said they are unlikely to make it to the end of April.